The American Civil Liberties Union is freedom's watchdog, working daily in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend individual rights and personal freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The ACLU was founded in 1920.

The Mississippi affiliate of the ACLU was founded in 1969 in the thick of the Civil Rights Movement. In Mississippi at that time, Civil Rights workers were being beaten, arrested and killed for demonstrating against unjust laws and institutionalized discrimination. Basic Constitutional rights were being violated daily, from the right to vote, to the right to speak out against one's government without arrest, to the right of equal treatment under the law.